The maximum concentration of gas achievable in a liquid ordinarily is governed by Henry's Law. At ambient pressure, the relatively low solubility of many gases, such as oxygen or nitrogen, within a liquid such as water produces a low concentration of the gas in the liquid. However, there are many applications wherein it would be advantageous to employ a gas concentration within the liquid which greatly exceeds its solubility at ambient pressure. Compression of a gas/liquid mixture at a high pressure can be used to achieve a high dissolved gas concentration, but disturbance of a gas-supersaturated liquid by attempts to eject it into a 1 bar environment from a high pressure reservoir ordinarily results in cavitation inception at or near the exit port. The rapid evolution of bubbles produced at the exit port vents much of the gas from the liquid, so that a high degree of gas-supersaturation no longer exists in the liquid at ambient pressure outside the high pressure vessel. In addition, the presence of bubbles in the effluent generates turbulence and impedes the flow of the effluent beyond the exit port.
In my co-pending application Ser. No 152,589, filed Nov. 15, 1993, I described a method for stabilization of a stream of oxygen-supersaturated water which permitted ejection of the stream from a high pressure vessel into a 1 bar environment without cavitation inception in the effluent at or near the exit port(s). An effluent of water containing oxygen at a concentration on the order of 4 cc oxygen/g of injectate, representing a partial pressure of approximately 140 bar of the dissolved gas, can be ejected from a high pressure vessel into a 1 bar liquid environment with complete absence of cavitation inception in the ejected stream. In air at 1 bar, cavitation inception in a high velocity stream is delayed until breakup of the ejected stream into droplets.
The complete absence of cavitation inception in water supersaturated with oxygen at a high concentration permits its in vivo infusion into either venous or arterial blood for the purpose of increasing the oxygen concentration of blood without incurring the formation of bubbles which would otherwise occlude capillaries.
In addition to this application as previously described, a wide variety of other applications would benefit from ejection of a gas-supersaturated fluid from a high pressure reservoir into ambient pressure in a manner which is unassociated with cavitation inception at or near the exit port. For example, organic material and plant waste streams, e.g., paper mills and chemical plants, often require an increase in dissolved oxygen content before the discharge of such waste streams in a body of water. U.S. Pat. No. 4,965,022 also recognizes that a similar need may also occur at municipal waste treatment plants and that fish farms require increased dissolved oxygen levels to satisfy the needs of high density aquaculture. Other applications are disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,875.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,680 relates to enriching the oxygen content of water. That reference discloses a number of conventional types of apparatus that can be used for continuously contacting liquid and oxygen-containing gas streams to effect oxygen absorption. To avoid premature liberation of dissolved oxygen before it is incorporated within the bulk of matter to be enriched in oxygen content, pressurizable confined flow passageways are used.
Other oxygen saturation devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,874,509; and 4,973,558. These and other approaches leave unsolved the need to infuse gas enriched fluid solutions from a high pressure reservoir toward a reaction site at a lower pressure without cavitation or bubble formation in the effluent at or near the exit port.